


Some News is Better Than None

by Scrawlers



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: (mildly at least), Found Family, Gen, Papa Sycamore, Papa Wolf!Sycamore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 10:26:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8140622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: The first time Augustine sees Alan after two years of no contact is when he sees him on an international news report, fighting in a crisis against legendary pokémon. The next morning, Augustine receives a phone call from Steven Stone and a young trainer named Manon.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place at the very beginning of The Strongest Mega Evolution - Act IV, though it references the ending of The Strongest Mega Evolution - Act III. Essentially, remember that part in TSME 4 where Steven and Manon call up Sycamore to talk to him about Alan? This fic is that phone call. More than that, this fic is everything leading up to that phone call, and everything following after.
> 
> Just for reference, Gabrielle/Gabby is the nickname I use for garchomp. I also headcanon that Alan nicknamed his charizard Lizardon, and did so even when charizard was still just a charmander.

Augustine didn’t sleep well that night.

He supposed it wasn’t entirely accurate to say that. It wasn’t that he had trouble sleeping, or even necessarily that he had nightmares. But when he awoke the next morning he dragged a cloak of fatigue with him, heavy and persistent even after he showered and dressed to start his day.

He hadn’t had nightmares, but the first thing on his mind when he fell asleep that night was the news report he had watched with Gabrielle just before bed, and the images he vividly recalled in the morning—as if they were a translucent curtain hanging over everything he laid eyes on—were much the same. There, in a report about an incident so catastrophic it made international news that same night, was a black charizard (Lizardon, it had to be Lizardon, it _had_ to be) swooping down low over the ice. And standing just beyond the charizard, standing in the doorway of a jet aircraft and leaning out with nothing but his grip on the door to hold him steady . . . was Alan.

When the initial maelstrom of emotion he felt over seeing Alan again for the first time in two years in that context subsided, what bemused Augustine the most was how conflicted he felt over the small ways in which Alan had changed—over the details he picked up on in the swift, sweeping shots of the news camera. The focus on Alan was brief, but it was just enough for Augustine to see how his features had sharpened—how his adolescence (and potentially his travels) had worn away at the softness of his face and helped define his cheekbones. He might have been taller—it was difficult to tell for sure, given the angle and the fact that he was perched on the edge of an open jet—but there was something about the way he stood that looked less like the awkward kid trying to grow into his own limbs that had left Augustine’s lab (and their home), and closer to the young adult he would one day be, confident and comfortable with his own muscle and form. He had grown, and it was to be expected—two years had passed, he was older now, and there was relief in knowing that he was doing well, that he was healthy, that two years of radio silence didn’t mean the worst had happened—but as glad as Augustine was to see it, there was still something painful about seeing the results after having missed the stages in-between.

Alan’s room was down the hall from Augustine’s—closer to the stairs—and on most days Augustine didn’t pay it much mind. The door had been closed since Alan had left, there was nothing inside that he needed, and Augustine had always made it a point to respect Alan’s privacy as much as possible. Child (or teenager, now) or not, Alan deserved that respect. But he paused by the door now—staring at it a moment as he thought again about how, despite how he had grown over the time he spent away, he was still recognizably _Alan,_ and still wearing the scarf Augustine had sent him for his thirteenth birthday to boot—and after a couple beats decided to open it.

The room was clean, aside from the dust—neat and organized, exactly as Alan had been intent on leaving it. (“I can’t say how long I’ll be gone, but I can say that I don’t want to come back to see dirty laundry that has been sitting out for months,” he had said.) His comforter was smoothed down over his bed, his pillows (two of them) tossed on top by the headboard, a smaller orange cushion that Augustine thought had been Lizardon’s favorite wedged between the bed and the wall. The black mesh clothes hamper at the foot of the bed was empty, but the tall wooden bookshelf by the window was all but full. It took Augustine only a moment to remember Alan’s method of organization: books that were more commonly referenced or read were on the middle shelves, whereas books less often used were reserved for the very top or bottom. Textbooks or other reference materials held the higher shelves, whereas recreational fiction was geared more toward the bottom, and looking at the lines and rows of books now, Augustine could see that they were sorted alphabetically by title.

Alan’s desk was on the other side of the room, by the closet. His lab coat had been left on the back of his chair, as if he had just stepped out for a moment rather than left on a three-year journey, and there were still sticky notes with messages and reminders (such as _Library books due Sunday—don’t forget_ , and _Pick up sandile @ 4pm from pokécenter_ , and Augustine’s personal favorite, _Find where Gabby hid Meyer’s hat and return it_ ) stuck to the cabinets built into the top of the desk. A framed photograph of Gabrielle holding up the newly hatched Lizardon for all of the other pokémon to see was positioned on the back right corner of the desk, facing the chair (and even now Augustine could remember how determined Alan had sounded when he had declared he was going to frame it, only to make good on his word that very day), and Alan’s old research journal sat on top of his closed laptop.

More accurately described, it was one of Alan’s _many_ research journals. He had gone through quite a few over the years, and had opted to take a fresh one with him when he left on his journey, saying that it was cleaner that way. Both journals were leatherbound, and this one had even more sticky notes (though this time of the smaller, rectangular variety) sticking out all around the edges, marking different pages and indicating different things by color. Augustine slowly flipped through it (Alan had never minded Augustine looking over his notes—had actually regularly asked for feedback or double-checked his information to make sure he had it right), and as he did, he smiled. The notes and observations themselves were ordinary enough; feeding and/or medicine charts for the various pokémon at the lab, theories and observations about pokémon they either had with them or pokémon they were keeping track of in the wild, and hypotheses jotted down and tested out, all recorded faithfully in his book. But what made him smile wasn’t the reminder of just how observant and clever Alan had been (though that was nice, too), but rather the doodles that lined the pages, or served as additional explanations for thoughts or ideas that Alan seemed unable to convey to his satisfaction through words. They were never full-scale drawings, but rather a drawn diagram of the pathways the furret were using to tease the poochyena across the grounds (Augustine remembered that debacle with both amusement and exasperation), or a Before and After diagram showing his thoughts on just how the new medicine the wooper were on was affecting them (a bit exaggerated, but humorous), or unrelated doodles of Lizardon, Gabrielle, and sometimes a psyduck scattered about the pages, bringing them to life.

Augustine closed the journal as he reached the place where Alan had left off (information and theories about mega evolution written out on the last page, along with a doodle of Lizardon the charmander with question marks written around him), and let his hand linger on the worn leather cover for a moment. Alan had kept the journal two years ago—had stuck his messages and reminders to his desk two years ago, had carefully put his freshly laundered clothes into his closet and dresser two years ago—but now he was gone, halfway around the world in the Hoenn region, dangling above a battle between legendary pokémon for reasons Augustine couldn’t begin to fathom. He was doing well, by the look of him—him and Lizardon both, particularly concerning Lizardon’s mega evolution—but the news report hadn’t said what had happened to him after the catastrophe was averted. It didn’t mention the aircraft Alan was in at all. And though Augustine had remained awake for a while after that, Alan never called.

Augustine scrubbed a hand down his face.

Alan hadn’t called for two years, yet he was clearly doing well. He was safe and alive enough to put himself in imminent, life-threatening danger on international television, at the very least. Even if he hadn’t called, that didn’t mean the worst had happened. The crisis had been averted. Surely, if there had been any wounded, if anyone had . . . the news anchors would have seen fit to report that. If anything, it would have only made their ratings go up.

With that thought (lukewarm comfort that it was) bolstering him, Augustine exited Alan’s room, shut the door behind him, and headed toward the stairs again. Weariness still made his eyes feel heavy and rendered his thoughts distracted, but a warm cup of coffee would fix that. Coffee, and perhaps a scone for breakfast, and everything else that was part of his usual morning routine, for this morning really was just like any other.

That was what Augustine told himself, anyway, as he greeted Gabrielle and stopped to scratch one of the many zigzagoon that liked to run rampant through the lab behind the ears. It was what he told himself as he fixed himself his cup of coffee (and had to pour out the first cup when he accidentally added salt instead of sugar), as he allowed Gabrielle to steal his scone from his hand (and she looked perplexed at the fact that she was able), and as he picked up the morning paper, put it down when he decided he didn’t want to read it, picked it up again as he thought that perhaps he should, and finally settled for dropping it on the drawing table just outside of the kitchen (though he missed and it ended up in the potted plant instead, something he sighed as he corrected). It was a normal morning, which meant that he should focus on gathering his charts for the routine morning check-ups on the pokémon, and then set to work on combing through the new documentation he received pertaining to Mega Evolution the day before. He should not, he told himself as he entered one of the preparation rooms of his laboratory to get started on his work, make an international call to the Rustboro City, Hoenn pokémon center just in case Alan happened to stop by and still be there after the incident in Rustboro Bay the night before.

As the thought crossed his mind, his own phone rang, a sharp sound through the otherwise quiet lab that made Augustine jump a little, his coffee splashing in his mug. A quick check of the caller ID told him that the number was Kalosean (something he expected, really, because he shouldn’t have expected anything different, shouldn’t have hoped—) and he took another sip of his coffee and swallowed it down before he answered the call on the largest monitor mounted on his wall. He made sure to smile before the call connected.

When the call did come through, his smile became a bit more genuine.

Augustine saw many trainers off on their journeys. As the regional professor, that was one of his duties—or at least, it was one he had willfully accepted. There was something about being able to set a new trainer up with their first partner pokémon—something about getting to be a part of that experience that Augustine loved. People’s lives were changed by pokémon, almost always for the better, and every now and then one of the trainers that Augustine had sent on their way contacted him years later to let him know how they were doing, that they were off to a new region, that they had found their dream and passion in racing, or contests, or performance art. Whenever he received a letter like that, he couldn’t help but feel as though the day was a little brighter. He loved hearing stories like that.

Which was why he couldn’t help but smile more genuinely when he saw Manon staring down (or up, he supposed, from her perspective) at him through the video phone monitor. She was standing in what looked to be the Kalos airport, the green spikes of her chespin appearing every few moments at the bottom corner of the screen as he tried desperately to jump into view. Manon hadn’t contacted him since she set off on her journey, and in all honesty he hadn’t thought that she would; she had seemed a bit scatterbrained when she left with her chespin, and that combined with her clumsiness admittedly made Augustine worry a bit for her. But her chespin had a cautious nature and was the hardiest of the lot at the time (not that Augustine would have let the froakie or fennekin hear him say that), and so he had at least comforted himself with the knowledge that Manon was in good paws.

But although he was happy to hear from Manon, she didn’t seem happy to be contacting him. She was frowning, her eyebrows pinched together.

“Yo, Manon,” Augustine said, and he set his coffee down on the console. “It’s been a while. Has something happened?”

“Professor, um . . .” Manon clenched the strap of her backpack tightly in one fist, twisting it back and forth before she asked (with the speed one used to rip off a bandage to prevent it from hurting overmuch), “You know a trainer named Alan, right?”

Augustine was vaguely grateful of the fact that he had thought to set his coffee cup down as his fingers went slack, his mouth dropping open a little as he stared at her, unable, for a moment to respond. Of all the people to mention—of all the _days_ to mention him—

“We traveled with him,” Manon continued, and she pushed herself up a little on her tiptoes to stand closer to the monitor as her chespin finally hopped up onto her shoulders.

“With Alan?” Augustine said.

That was surprise number two of the morning. Alan had made great progress in coming out of his shell over the years—certainly more so than he had been when Augustine had first taken him in—but even by the time he left he was still a little shy. He was polite and friendly enough to strangers, but still noticeably more comfortable around pokémon than people. Even setting that aside, Augustine hadn’t heard from Alan in two years. Manon had only left on her own journey recently. What had happened in two years that Alan wouldn’t call home, but would still take on at least one traveling companion?

Manon nodded before she glanced to her right, and stepped aside as someone else—a young man with a recognizable, if not familiar, face—stepped into view and inclined his head toward Augustine. “Hello, Professor.”

Augustine gave him a steady look in return. “Steven Stone . . . isn’t it?” he asked.

In lieu of answering (or perhaps preferring to provide silence as his confirmation), Steven glanced over at Manon. “Manon, Alan, and I have been through some things together,” he said.

Prior to that exact second, the information he had been given felt more like oddly shaped, perhaps damaged pieces of a bizarre puzzle. He understood what he was seeing and hearing, but he wasn’t sure how it was connected—how or why Manon was calling him out of the blue, how she knew Alan, why she was accompanied by the Hoenn Champion. But the moment the words _have been through some things together_ left Steven’s mouth, Augustine once again remembered the scene from the news report in vivid clarity. He remembered, too, as an additional note written alongside the puzzle that Devon Corporation’s headquarters were in Rustboro City, Hoenn. The CEO of Devon Corporation was Steven’s father. If he had been through some things with Alan, then that likely meant . . .

“Does this have to do with the incident in Rustboro Bay last night?” Augustine asked.

Steven blinked, surprised. “You’ve heard about that already?”

“News travels fast, particularly when it involves legendary pokémon,” Augustine said. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his lab coat, and rolled his Key Stone between his fingers as a way to keep his calm. Alan had been there. He had gone through the incident with them. But for whatever reason, he didn’t seem to be there with them now. “I did hear that it was resolved quickly. The incident seemed to be over by the time the news reached us.”

Steven nodded, but his expression was no less serious as his surprise faded. “Yes, we were able to get the situation under control. Or rather, Mega Rayquaza was able to quell the fighting.” Beside Steven, Manon shuddered, and her chespin patted her cheek in a consoling fashion.

“I see.” Augustine squeezed his Key Stone more tightly, and curled his fingers into a taut fist in his other pocket. He cleared his throat. “That is good to hear, but . . . you mentioned Alan. Where is he?”

“Fleur-De-Lis Labs here in Kalos, I expect. That’s where he told me he was headed when he left Hoenn, anyway, and I would be surprised to find that he was lying,” Steven said.

Fleur-De-Lis Labs was the last answer Augustine expected, but it was several worlds better than the one he had dreaded. Relief melted the anxiety making his shoulders tense and his back ache, even as both Steven and Manon looked as serious and uncertain as before.

“So he’s all right, then?” Augustine asked. “He wasn’t hurt or . . . he wasn’t injured during the battle? He’s all right?”

Steven’s frown deepened, an expression crossing his face that caused another knot to tie in Augustine’s gut as Gabrielle bristled beside him. But before Steven could explain the reason behind his frown, Manon beat him to the punch.

“Alan hurt his shoulder when Mega Rayquaza attacked us,” she said. And she chewed her lip again as she looked down at her feet. “There was—Mega Rayquaza used—used Draco Meteor, and I . . .” She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “The blast knocked me off my feet, but Alan caught me. He protected me, but because of that he hurt his shoulder.” She opened her eyes again, staring up at Augustine as she twisted her backpack strap in her fist. “He said he was fine and that it didn’t bother him anymore, but I think he was lying. He looked like he was in a lot of pain when he got hurt, I know he was!”

“I thought you said Mega Rayquaza quelled the fighting?” Augustine said.

“Only the second time,” Manon said. “He attacked us the first time.”

“The first time?”

“Perhaps it would be better if we started from the top,” Steven said, and he smiled thinly. “It has been something of an eventful past day and a half.”

With assistance from Manon, Steven launched into an explanation of everything that had happened over the past day or so. He explained how he met Alan and Manon, and how Alan had challenged him to a battle within minutes of meeting him, only for their battle to be interrupted by Lysandre of Fleur-De-Lis Labs, Alan’s apparent present employer. He explained about the megalith, about Mega Rayquaza—about how the megalith appeared in Rustboro Bay, and Primal Kyogre and Primal Groudon were awakened. Augustine listened as Manon explained how she stowed away on the aircraft after Alan told her to stay behind because she was worried, listened as Steven explained how Alan opened the aircraft to send Lizardon out against Primal Kyogre and Primal Groudon without any warning that he was about to do so, and listened as the pair of them explained how Alan entered the fray himself once Lizardon was struck down, only to end up unconscious himself after an attack from Primal Groudon. The news crew hadn’t seen fit to capture that part in their footage.

“. . . that he needed to return to Fleur-De-Lis Labs to report in, and that he didn’t wish to wait for Manon because she would be in danger if she remained by his side,” Steven finished, and Manon scowled at some point on the floor, her arms crossed. “We’ve come to Kalos to seek him out. Well, that, and I have a few things I would like to speak to Lysandre about.”

Manon blinked, surprised, and looked back at Steven. “Like what?”

Steven smiled back at her. “Just things.”

Manon frowned again, but before she could press further, Augustine asked, “But he—Alan seemed all right when he left? You said he was injured, but . . .”

Steven’s smile fell, but after a second of consideration he looked to Manon again. “Manon, why don’t you go and get something to drink for yourself and Hari-san? It was a long flight over here, and this has been a pretty long conversation; I’m sure you two could use the break.”

“Huh? Oh, uh—no, we’re fine!” Manon said, and she smiled widely—a bit too widely for it to be genuine, in Augustine’s opinion. “We’re just fine, right, Hari-san? We don’t need anything, do we?”

Her chespin offered a sound of chipper agreement from her shoulder.

“Really, I insist.” Steven slipped his wallet out of his back pocket, and with a flick of his wrist produced a debit card, which he handed over. Manon stared at it with wide eyes. “Go get yourselves something to eat and drink at that breakfast place over there. I’ll come join you when I’ve finished speaking with Professor Sycamore.”

Manon looked up from the debit card, her eyes just as wide as they were before. “Are you sure?”

Steven smiled. “Perfectly.”

Manon smiled gratefully back. “Thank you very much, Mr Stone! Ah, um.” She turned back to the phone, and bowed quickly. “Thank you, Professor Sycamore! It was nice to talk to you again.”

“And you as well, Manon. Feel free to call any time, all right?” Augustine said.

“We will! Come on, Hari-san, let’s go!”

Manon darted out of view as her chespin clung to her hat for dear life, and Steven watched her run for a moment before he looked back to the video phone. When he did, his mouth was pressed once again into a thin, grim line.

“I want to first apologize for calling you out of the blue like this,” he said. “I know it was abrupt and not exactly the best way to start your morning, but I wasn’t sure who else to call. Alan seems to have told Manon very little about himself, and he has told me even less. From what he did tell her, he used to be your assistant, and since neither of us have any idea who his parents are, much less how to get a hold of them, I figured it would be best to call you first. That said, if you do have a way of contacting his parents . . .”

Augustine huffed a small, wry laugh, and combed his fingers through his hair. “I have as much information as you in that regard, I’m afraid,” he said. “I took Alan in when he was a child. His parents weren’t in the picture at the time, and he couldn’t remember them. We never heard from them after that, either. As far as I know, he’s an orphan.”

Something like sympathy crossed Steven’s face. “I see.”

“But if there is anything you need to say about him—if there is anything that you would want to talk to his parents about, you can tell me,” Augustine said, and beside him, Gabrielle made a sound of agreement. “I would like to know. Please.”

It took Steven only a second of consideration before he smiled. “Well, you do seem like the most qualified person in the room,” he said. He glanced toward his left, in the direction that Manon had run off to, before he looked back at the video phone. “I’ll do my best to keep this brief.

“I told you that Alan is currently employed by Lysandre as an agent of Fleur-De-Lis Labs. Lysandre chose not to provide me with many specific details, but he did inform me that Alan is currently collecting the energy generated via mega evolution as part of an ongoing project Fleur-De-Lis Labs is working on for . . . peaceful purposes.” As he had when he had mentioned Lysandre’s objectives earlier, Steven’s face contorted around the last two words, as if they were a sour candy he regretted eating.

Augustine nodded. “I remember you mentioning that before.”

“Right. But what I failed to say before—what I didn’t want to say in front of Manon, because I don’t want to cause her any more worry than she has already—is this: I suspect that Lysandre’s objectives aren’t, as he claims, peaceful in nature. And if I may be blunt, I also don’t believe he has Alan’s best interests at heart, whether as an employee or as a person. I feel it would actually be more accurate to say he doesn’t care at all.”

Gabrielle growled, and Augustine stroked her neck with one hand as he squeezed the Key Stone in his pocket with the other. “Please elaborate.”

“These are only gut feelings. I don’t have any concrete evidence to base any of this on thus far. However, in the time Lysandre and I were in contact his primary—his _only_ interest was in the megalith. He stated that Alan was his subordinate, and that he was having Alan investigate mega evolution energy; despite this, he spent most of the time we worked on this project speaking to me and ignoring Alan entirely, only addressing him when it came time to give a directive or to respond to something Alan said directly to him. Furthermore, even when he did speak to me he kept his intentions vague, and never informed me of his plans before he carried them out. I had no idea he was going to bring in his assistants to run experiments and tests on the megalith before he did it. I also had no idea he was going _take_ the megalith before he announced he was doing so. His refusal to be forthright and his decisions to act before sharing his intentions—and, moreover, his decision to remove an ancient Hoennese relic from Hoenn without seeking permission or approval—concerns me greatly. He hasn’t done anything intentionally malicious yet, but I can’t say that he has acted in a way that inspires confidence, either.”

“And Alan?”

“I don’t believe Alan is aware of Lysandre’s true intentions any more than I am,” Steven said, and though Augustine thought it should have, somehow that didn’t make him feel very much better. “As I said, while we weren’t in each other’s presence for very long, Lysandre hardly paid him mind during the time we were. He showed the bare minimum of concern when Alan and Manon were buried under rocks during Mega Rayquaza’s first assault at the megalith site. And later, during the Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre incident . . .” Steven took another deep breath, as if taking a moment to collect himself, before he gave Augustine a solid stare. “I told you before that when Primal Groudon’s attack caused the ice beneath Alan’s feet to explode the blast knocked him back several feet and rendered him unconscious. What I didn’t mention—because again, I was trying to spare Manon the worry—was that Alan’s headset was broken because of the impact. All communication with him went offline, and I knew this the moment it happened because of the off-hook tone that sounded when his line went dead. Lysandre was on the same communication channel we were; he knew as well—he had to have. But not once in that entire affair did he ask after Alan. He did not inquire as to why Alan’s line went dead. He did not ask about whether or not Alan was safe, or even comment on the fact that Alan and Lizardon had helped protect the megalith from Kyogre and Groudon. Instead, he took the megalith, announced that he was doing so, and cut communications. As far as I’m aware, Alan decided to return to Fleur-De-Lis Labs on his own. It certainly doesn’t seem to me as if Lysandre cared enough to call him back.” Steven paused, and then gave another wry smile. “Forgive me. I’m being blunt again.”

“Your candidness is appreciated,” Augustine said, though he couldn’t bring himself to return Steven’s smile. From the sound of what Steven was telling him, Alan had risked his life in order to protect Lysandre’s interests. He had protected Manon and Lizardon, as well—and his injuries both times were a result of doing so, something which was unsurprising to Augustine considering how many times Alan sustained injuries trying to aid pokémon at the lab, Gabrielle included—but the only reason he was in those situations to begin with was because he was in Lysandre’s employ. Lysandre had sent him on those missions—Lysandre had ordered, even if indirectly, Alan to risk his life—and in the end, it sounded as if Alan could have died on the ice and Lysandre wouldn’t have cared since his objective had been met. Augustine took a steadying breath of his own. “Do you know why Alan is choosing to work with him?”

“I’m afraid not,” Steven said. “He never shared that information with Manon or myself. The most he seems to have told Manon is that Lysandre is important to him somehow.”

“I see. Do you know _when_ he began to work for Lysandre?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that one, either. I apologize.”

“It’s quite all right. You’ve told me more than I could have hoped for already. For that, and for protecting Alan and Manon the way you have, I owe you my gratitude.”

Steven gave him a somewhat apologetic smile. “I’ve done my best, but Alan isn’t exactly an easy one to watch out for. I promise you that if I could have, I would have stopped him from going out in the middle of that battle. But I saw Lizardon go down one second, and when I looked over at Alan in the next he was already jumping out of the plane . . .”

Despite the situation, Augustine chuckled. “I can’t say I’m surprised, and believe me, you could not have stopped him even if you had the chance to try. Did you know, he actually hatched Lizardon from an egg himself? We actually had no idea what pokémon would hatch from that egg, but Alan helped incubate and take care of it, and in the end he was right there when Lizardon hatched. They didn’t officially become partners until some time after that, when Alan decided to set out on his journey, but I think it would be fair to say that Lizardon imprinted on him immediately. Their bond at first sight seemed fairly remarkable to me, at any rate.”

Steven grinned. “Considering I hatched my metagross in a similar fashion, I can relate.”

The warmth Augustine felt upon remembering the day Lizardon hatched (the very same day the photo on Alan’s desk had been taken, in fact) faded within the moment. That day—and Alan’s bond with Lizardon—was remarkable, but in the face of the current situation, it did little to help. “Steven, I don’t wish to ask more from you than I already have—”

“Please, don’t feel that way. It’s an asset to me to have at least one person I can share this with.”

“—but you said Alan was currently at Fleur-De-Lis Labs, is that right? You’re sure of this?”

“Fairly positive, yes. As I said, I don’t believe he was lying, and unless he has already left he should still be there.” Steven tilted his head to the side. “Why? Are you . . . ?”

“I’ll meet you there,” Augustine said, and after a brief second of surprise, Steven smiled. “It might take me a little longer to get there than it will you and Manon, but I’ll be there nonetheless. I’d like to speak with Alan, and perhaps have a few words with Lysandre myself.”

“Understandable. Do you need the address?”

“No, I’m able to find it. Thank you, though.”

“Naturally. Well, Professor, I’ll look forward to seeing you then.” Steven offered a fierce little smile. “Perhaps we’ll be at the bottom of this mystery by this evening.”

Augustine gave the best smile he could in return. “With any luck. I’ll see you later, Steven.”

“I’ll count on it, Professor Sycamore.”

Steven disconnected the call, the monitor once again cutting to the dull charcoal grey color it always sported as the light faded from the screen. Augustine turned to Gabrielle, who he found was already staring at him, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet.

“Gabrielle, how do you feel about taking a little trip?” he asked, but he hardly had a chance to complete the sentence before she cut him off with an eager roar, ducking her head to bump it against his. Augustine laughed, scratching along her neck, and then reached into his pocket for her pokéball. “Well, if you’re that excited, I suppose I can’t say no, now can I? Let’s go meet with Alan again.”

Gabrielle responded with another happy cry as Augustine returned her, and he patted his pocket after he slipped her pokéball back inside. He then (though part of him felt it would be better to wait for them to arrive so he could explain the situation in person) wrote out a quick note explaining everything to Sophie and Cosette, and taped it to the front door of the lab before set out for the train station.

He didn’t know what he was going to say to Alan when he saw him again. _Hello_ was the obvious greeting, _how are you doing_ was an equally as good one, and a strong part of Augustine thought he might just skip that entirely and hug him. But however he reacted in the moment—however much he was or was not able to plan for that moment—Augustine did know one thing for certain:

If Alan gave any indication, direct or otherwise, that Lysandre had done anything to hurt him, then Augustine and Gabrielle were going to have more than just a few words for him.


End file.
